A few states too many

Politician A in his trademark dhoti kurta was shouting at Politician B (who surprisingly always wore safari suits), when suddenly A rushed across the room and tried wringing B’s neck. B quickly shouted – watch out, you are in my state! You don’t have the permit to enter! To which A said ‘But hey, I just crossed this room! How can I be in a different state?’. B was now adjusting the creases on his suit saying ‘ Well – after my state was carved out from yours, this building lies midway between our states of Uttar Paschim Bundelkhand (UPB) and Dakshin Paschim Bundelkhand (DPB). Infact, this side of the table belongs to UPB and that side belongs to DPB!’ Politician A started to say……

Welcome to India in 2147. After 200 years of Independence, we have finally discovered God in small things! In the interests of democracy and people participation, we now have 600 states and 150 union territories. The union territories are necessary because a few capitals are claimed by several states. E.g Hyderabad is claimed by 7 states – North AP, South AP, Telangana, Rayalseema, YSR Nadu, Rosaiah Nadu and Nizamgadh! I am told there was some Sardar Patel who in 1947 actually started combining princely states into larger states. Come on! Anyone can see that smaller states are better. For one, we have more chief ministers, ministers, bureaucrats and office staff! Infact, we hold the world record for more bureaucrats per citizen than any country in the world (our figure per person is 0.1 i.e. 1 bureaucrat per 10 people, whereas even China has only a measly 0.0001). So, we have more files (hardcopies and softcopies) than any single country! Our Govt. needed so many computers (and the AMC was costing us so much), that we simply bought out IBM and HCL – one company to supply computers and another to service them. Now we have IAS officers in the US to run the overseas operations of those companies! Mera Bharat Mahaan.
So many states present a few problems though :
1. The Ranji trophy tournament is now held every 4 years. For the first 3 years we have playoffs between 999 teams (600 states, 150 UTs and the rest are companies like Railways, Services, IBM, HCL etc etc). We have 10 Indian cricket teams (to ensure that most state boards get to send atleast 1 player) – so there is one Indian team in every major cricket tournament in the world (BTW – BCCI now own ICC so no one could protest against this).
2. Another problem is the roads. Highways connecting two states are usually connected to each other by mud roads at the state border! The problem was that each state would appoint a different contractor, who would in turn fix a different end point for his highway. The net result being that highway from Vindhyachal to Purvanchal would end at the Purvanchal –Vananchal border, whereas the highway from Purvanchal to Vindhyachal would terminate at the Vindhyachal-Pahaadanchal border! Both these borders being 50 km from each other, there would be a 50 km inter-state mud road (snakeway) between two highways! We are now constituting AMISS (Authority for Management of Inter State Snakeways) to manage these mud roads better!
3. The 5th standard geography text books are now encyclopaedias (softcopies ofcourse). 600 states, 150 UTs, their capitals, their unique ‘climate conditions’, their ‘indigenous people and customs’ take up pages together. Infact, geography exams are routinely known to have 1 question for 100 marks ‘Name any 100 Indian states and their capitals’

Oh – back to our politicians. Politician A started to say something, when suddenly a certain PCR started a hunger strike outside the window. He wanted to carve a new state out of A’s and B’s states! United we stand… divided into states…